ACC 14 - Day 9 : It’s the property - stupid!

May 10th, 2009
by Chris Sugden in Jamaica

On Sunday, delegates are going to Anglican Churches throughout Jamaica to visit, and preach and enjoy Jamaican hospitality. They will welcome members of those churches to reflect with them on their experiences on Monday. Meanwhile over Saturday afternoon and evening people took time to reflect long and hard on Friday’s debate, and I was able to review the video-tape and transcript of the afternoon debate.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the debate on Friday morning about the covenant was actually about matters of faith. However it was actually about the issues of property and litigation in the United States.

First of all, there was an attempt to add a fourth moratorium for a cessation of litigation, as proposed by the Primates at Dar-es-Salaam in February 2007 and as referred to in the Windsor Continuation Group Report. This was narrowly defeated. Not before the Presiding Bishop had suggested that Provinces all over the world had difficulties in securing alienated properties. Speakers from Sudan and the Middle East refuted two of her four examples. No African spoke in the debate on the WCG report. The only contentious vote was on this issue, and the vote to install a fourth moratorium was lost by one vote. the rest